Chapter Seventeen
P
The River Trent, according to longstanding folklore, was so thick with fish that no effort was needed to catch a bounty.
Lord Lampton had invited the gentlemen of the house party to test that ancient tradition.
He, however, was focusing far more attention on telling stories than dropping a line in the water.
“Imagine my horror when Carrington arrived, at a ball mind you, sporting a horse collar knot.” Lampton tutted and shook his head. “I could not bear to look at him the entire remainder of the evening. Quite put me off. My dancing suffered for it, I will tell you that.”
“Imbecile,” Adam muttered under his breath.
Though his eyes were focused on his line bobbing in the water, the tension in Adam’s posture belied the relaxed nature of their outing. The Dangerous Duke was displeased.
“In case there was any confusion,” Linus said, “drowning does fall under the broader category of murder, and you did make a vow to your wife.”
Adam eyed their host for only an instant. “Lampton is the one who brought us here. I can always argue he was begging for a swim.”
“A forced swim?”
“If it will shut him up.”
The duke and earl’s interactions had been less antagonistic since their joint effort to toss out Arabella’s aunt and uncle. What had worsened relations? “Is this because Harry has defected?”
As if to punctuate the question, Harry laughed as Lampton mimicked the very awkward way in which the Prince Regent moved about.
The two had become surprisingly fast friends, both finding in the other a willing comrade in ridiculousness.
Only the evening before they had exchanged a series of increasingly absurd remarks.
Linus had managed to hold back his laughter only with great effort.
Adam had looked thunderous, as he did now.
“Harry can spend time with anyone he wants.”
Linus adjusted his footing and gently guided his fishing line a bit closer to a small eddy in the river. “You’re jealous, then?”
“Not in the least.” Beneath Adam’s grumpy exterior was an undeniable sincerity, even a little amusement. “He distracts Harry. It is perhaps the only thing I actually like about the idiotic earl.”
Linus eyed him sidelong. “I thought Harry was meant to distract Lampton, not the other way around.”
“So long as they’re both leaving me alone.”
A cool breeze shook the trees nearby and sent added ripples over the water.
“You didn’t have to come along today,” Linus reminded him. “With Lampton and Harry both gone, the house would have been quiet.”
Adam rolled his fishing pole in his hand. “I like fishing.” A shockingly unterrifying declaration. “I am not often afforded the opportunity.”
“Why not? You have an enormous lake at the Castle.”
“I also have enormous responsibilities.” Adam began slowly pulling in his line. “There is little time for leisure when I am at home.”
There was a bit of irony in that. “For my part, I seem to have nothing but leisure since leaving the navy.”
“Wait until you’re back at your estate. That’ll keep you busy enough.
” The duke recast his line. A peacefulness hung about him that one did not usually see there.
It seemed he really did enjoy fishing. Did Persephone know as much?
She would likely insist that her husband make time for something that brought him pleasure and a release of strain. Perhaps Linus ought to mention it.
Linus’s line drifted on the current a bit past where he wanted it.
He reeled it in and recast. Charlie seemed to have lost all interest. His pole sat abandoned on the shoreline, and he walked along a rocky outcropping a bit apart from the other gentlemen.
He was alone but didn’t seem overly bothered by it.
He likely felt out of place amongst this gathering of people so much his senior.
He was not a child, but neither was he truly grown yet. It was a difficult place to be.
Harry sat on a rock not far distant, his line bobbing about without receiving the least attention. “If I don’t catch anything, I plan to blame you, Lampton. I suspect you’ve cast a spell of some kind.”
“I, for one, intend to blame the weather,” Lampton replied, swinging his quizzing glass on its chain. Who wore a quizzing glass on a fishing expedition? It was beyond odd. “The summer has been unseasonably cool.”
“I suspect your lack of fish will be the result of your pole leaning against that tree instead of being in the water,” Harry said, “though I’m no expert.”
Lord Lampton tugged at his cuffs, then fluffed his cravat. “The fish are, no doubt, so impressed with this knot my valet created that I hardly need to entice them with a hook and bait.”
“They’ll land on the bank out of sheer joy, is that it?” Harry grinned.
Oh yes. Harry had most certainly defected.
“Indeed.” The earl set a foot on a slightly higher rock, striking a pose worthy of the most dramatic of portraits.
“And if this weather continues as it has, we’ll have another frost fair this winter.
I will commission an ice sculpture of my success here today.
I am certain Mother Nature sent this spell of weather specifically so I could do so, which I think was very sporting of her. ”
“This weather is nothing to celebrate,” Adam tossed back. “We’ve had crop failures throughout the kingdom. People are suffering. You should be praying for this cold spell to pass, not continue.”
“But think of the ice sculpture,” Lord Lampton implored.
Adam turned to face him more fully. “You’ve been present when this has been discussed in Lords.
Were you not listening when we were told of those pouring out of Wales, hungry and broken by their losses, or when we discussed the famine plaguing Ireland because of this weather? Do not make light of this.”
“My good man,” Lampton sauntered a bit closer, “I am happy to share my ice sculpture with anyone who wishes to enjoy it.”
Adam tossed his pole onto the bank and moved toward Lampton. His stride was not one of friendly camaraderie. Linus eyed Harry, unsure how quickly they ought to intervene.
“I first took up my seat in Lords when I was twenty-one years old.” Adam’s voice tightened with each word. “For six years, I served there with your father. For six years, I watched him as an example of how a gentleman fulfills his duties. I admired him. Deeply.”
Some of the earl’s bravado died, replaced by a tension of his own.
“For his sake,” Adam continued, “I have held my tongue while you have pranced and preened about that chamber. I have held out hope that eventually you would decide to live up to his legacy. But you never do. He was a gentleman worthy of that title. You, sir, are a disgrace to his memory.”
“How dare you.” The earl didn’t sound the least superficial now. “How dare you stand on my father’s land and question his legacy.”
“So long as that legacy is borne by the likes of you, I will question it at every turn.”
The two men stood within throttling distance now. Linus tucked his fishing pole into the space between two rocks and stepped closer to the combatants, ready to jump in should it prove necessary. Harry made his way over to him.
“I know what it is to be a too-young member of Lords,” Adam said, “without a father to guide me, without the first idea of how to be a gentleman of worth. There are others in that chamber in that same position, and they look to you, Lampton. You draw attention, no doubt on purpose, and they see you. They see the example you set, and you are teaching them to be frippery wastes.”
For the first time in the course of Linus’s entire acquaintance with the earl, Lampton looked almost threatening.
A harshness settled in his eyes and in the tenseness of his features.
There was something in the set of his shoulders that, to Linus’s experienced gaze, spoke of one familiar with battle.
“You, Your Grace, are teaching them to cast judgment and aspersion without bothering to know the entirety of a situation. For why bother discovering what one does not know when one can simply assume the worst and judge accordingly.”
Adam pointed an accusatory finger at Lampton’s face.
“You think I do not see what you are? I watched you toss those weaselly Hamptons from your home with all the precise determination your father possessed. I know when Miss Hampton grew ill, you saw to her care without hesitation. I have seen your attentiveness to your mother. You know how to be worthy; you know how to be strong and capable. You choose not to be.”
Lampton, to his credit, didn’t flinch or squirm as most men would have.
He raised an eyebrow, not unlike Adam’s signature look.
“You wish to speak of masks? To all the world you appear hard and cold through and through. You are known as the Dangerous Duke. You are feared and fearsome and, if rumors are to be believed, are more heartless than the devil himself. Yet I have watched you. You are tender with your son. You look at your wife with an affection that belies the moniker you have encouraged over the years. I remember well enough the gentleness you showed your quiet and tenderhearted sister-in-law during her debut in Society. You may feel justified in decrying my frivolous behavior, but you, sir, are more of a counterfeit than I will ever be.”
Linus inched closer to them. Mentioning Adam’s family was perilous, whether or not Lampton knew as much. Harry watched the gentlemen but looked more curious than concerned.
“Do what you will with your father’s legacy,” Adam said. “That is yours to dispose of, but I will not stand silently by while you cause innocent people to suffer.”
“I certainly hope you mean to explain that remark,” Lampton said tightly.
“Life has dealt your wife a difficult enough hand without you adding to her misery.”
Lampton’s nostrils flared. “You would dare speak of my wife.”